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Even before Antonia Dolhaine became a teenager, she knew she wanted to run off and join the circus.

She was a student living in West Vancouver at the time, and had been into gymnastics from a very young age. Then she saw the Cirque du Soleil’s production of Quidam. That’s all it took.

Like a trapeze flying through the air, her life took off on a new trajectory.

Always willing to go all out to pursue her interests, she enrolled at age 11 in the National Circus School in Montreal. “It was pretty scary,” she recalled. Fortunately, her mother moved with her to La Belle Provence for a year.

She wound up moving back to Vancouver with her mother, graduating from Handsworth Secondary, then returning solo to Montreal for the circus school’s college program, where is currently enrolled.

Now 20, she has a certain empathy for the budding young wannabe circus stars who will turn out for the circus school’s cross-Canada pre-selection tour that will be in Vancouver Nov. 9.

The first audition she did in Vancouver for the school was seven hours long. The subsequent audition in Montreal lasted four days.

“So many people show up. There is a cut once or twice a day. In the end, you get down to the final few people remaining. Then you find out two months later whether you got in or not.”

She found that two-month wait to be excruciating. “You go crazy with every email that pops into your inbox.”

The circus school estimates that only about 15 per cent of candidates at official auditions make the cut.

When Dolhaine got the thumbs up, she knew she had to jump at it. There is only a narrow window in which your body can handle the punishing ride.

Once accepted, your life is turned over to the circus school.

Dolhaine said it is not unusual to put in 12-hour days, combining classes at the school toward high school for younger students or a college-level diploma in circus arts in the case of post-secondary students, with circus training in areas like floor acrobatics, balancing, juggling and aerial classes.

“It’s a very full day, but it all comes down to planning and being on top of things in terms of your grocery shopping and getting to sleep on time,” said Dolhaine.

Being tired and feeling a bit sore are almost permanent states. But people like her who have opted for the gruelling route to stardom have found it all worthwhile.

Sarah Poole, a former professional dancer from New York who moved to Montreal to teach at the circus school 10 years ago, said there is a 95-per-cent placement rate for circus school graduates.

“If parents are worried about sending their kids off to join the circus, it’s actually a pretty good career move for a lot of them,” said Poole.

Some find work in Europe in cabarets and dinner shows, while others find work on cruise ships, under a plethora of circus tents that seem to have sprouted everywhere, or in other entertainment venues in far-flung parts of the world like Abu Dhabi.

Dolhaine finds performances so energizing, she is transported into a transcendent state. “It’s the only thing that makes me feel like that.”

Looking forward to bright new vistas on the horizon, she hopes to pursue a career in Europe, or perhaps on the cruise ships.

With its two circus schools and general support of the arts, Vancouver is a fertile recruiting ground for the national circus school, said Poole.

The school, which is located next to the Cirque du Soleil headquarters in the St. Michel district in northeast Montreal, sets the bar high when recruiting. When they arrive in Vancouver, the school’s teachers will be looking not only for athletes, gymnasts and dancers, but for artists who have a sense of rhythm, who have creative flourish, who can improvise, and who are at ease on stage, said Poole.

Leaving no doubt that candidates must be prepared to jump through hoops, a news release from the school said aspirants will be tested for “spatial orientation, co-ordination, flexibility, strength, stage presence (acting ability), movement and musicality (dance).”

Poole points out that the modern-day circus is a far cry from the Barnum & Bailey or Ringling Brothers circuses of old where you had lions and tigers and a giant, noisy spectacle generally in three rings.

The contemporary circus “is really at the crossroads of a multiplicity of art forms, combining a high level of acrobatic skills, the principles of dance, of theatre, of visual arts,” said Poole.

Those starry-eyed kids who come out for the pre-selection tour just might be onto something.

“Of all the performing arts, circus is the one that is expanding the most,” said Poole.

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Big Top dreams become a reality at the National Circus School

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